Chapter 613 - A Rouge Wave in the Calm Sea

Xiong Zhi's heart softened.

"Can you tell me the important details in the meeting?"

The couple sat on the couch. Xiong Zhi asked her attending secretary to give Linfeng some tea and snacks. 

Linfeng explained to her the necessary information he gathered, such as which people recommended who, and that the faction allies would vote out Ming Zhi Yi from the VVIP list once they win.

Xiong Zhi frowned and immediately saw the problem. 

"They did not even talk about what they will do if Ming Zhi Yi wins the position. It seems like the bosses outside of the legendary families cannot be depended on. They will likely turn their backs and switch sides once our faction lost the election."

"Yes, that is more likely what will happen. However, the heads of the four families stayed back. I think they are going to discuss the measures for worst case scenario."

"They have to. The four families are the ones who will be most affected once Ming Zhi Yi sits on the head position. They will do everything they can to suppress him."

After saying these, Xiong Zhi fell silent. Many thoughts ran in her mind. 

She looked up at Linfeng's profile of drinking tea and voiced out her worries. "Do you think they have an idea of Ming Zhi Yi's ability? What kind of movement will they make to suppress him?"

Linfeng put down the cup, put a hand on his chin, and thought. "Hmm... Head Lu has a deep grudge with Ming Zhi Yi, so more likely, they will make the first move and suppress him from the very beginning. However, it is unlikely that Ming Zhi Yi will be suppressed."

Silence settled in the office.

Xiong Zhi sighed and leaned her head against the wide shoulders. 

"Do you think we should let ourselves be known and help them?"

Linfeng shook his head and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "No, not yet. We are still investigating. If we let ourselves be known with our actions and give a helping hand to the faction, then we will likely be discovered. All of our actions will be traced and the ongoing investigation we have will be tracked down. We can't allow any mishap or intervention to happen now. Right now, our investigation is making progress and Ming Zhi Yi has no idea about our movements..." Linfeng halted. 

Lu Jin's figure entered his mind.

Right, that man knew that he was being nosy. That man might not be able to confirm it but he would surely be suspicious of them.

Seeing that Linfeng stopped on his words, Xiong Zhi touched his face. "Linfeng?"

The man recovered and shook the idea off from his mind. 

For now, Lu Jin's actions to him were quite mysterious and unreadable. He had suspected him, Linfeng, but he did not take an action.

Why?

Was he really silent or was he harboring evil plans behind?

However, the investigation team was not yet discovered. His instincts were telling him that the enemies still had not discovered them yet.

"Linfeng?"

"Ah, I am sorry. I accidentally fell into deep thoughts. As I was saying, it is better for Ming Zhi Yi to face the legendary families' oppression and be more preoccupied. It will make our investigations run more smoothly. And using the legendary family as bait, we can also take a look in Ming Zhi Yi's true capability."

Xiong Zhi fell silent. She was considering Linfeng's suggestion and the pros and cons of it.

He was right. 

They had to dig deeper about this matter and not alert the enemy. They had to truly see the face of the enemy and the power he was holding before making their move. 

"The mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind," Xiong Zhi muttered.

"Yes, we will do that," Linfeng calmly said.

The oriole whose existence was out of everyone's perception would slowly become bigger while stalking the mantis and the cicada.

******

Days passed and the world continued to move forward on its own hurried pace.

While schemes were slowly moving on their own under the currents, a huge bomb was suddenly thrown into the sea of the ICT industry, disturbing the calmness and creating waves everywhere.

Prior to this bomb, a creation that stunned everyone and made every businessman want to have a piece of it had shaken the world, the ZD World.

Countless interested parties had fought to be the first person whom SC would choose as their partner to expand ZD World. Even when SC already establishes various partnersh.i.p.s and cooperations with other companies, this did not discourage the ambitious businessmen from courting SC.

ZD World was truly a majestic creation of SC. If they could only make another ZD World in this monopolistic period of time, it would be great for these businessmen who had lost an inch then a mile from other companies.

Unfortunately, it was only wishful thinking. Creating another project like ZD World would take more time, money, and resources. Stealing the technology could lessen the effort and money, but SC had kept a tight leash on its corporate and R&D secrets. Alas, they would likely only see another ZD World after three to five more years at this rate.

But who would have thought that barely a year later, another ZD World appeared!

It was a bomb that shook the continent yet again.

All companies courting SC turned their greedy eyes to this newly launched project.

'Univ One.'

A different name from ZD World, however, the main features, the use, and the countries it covered were more and less the same with ZD World! The scope was smaller and focused in the region of the continent, but this was already a huge deal!

The businessmen were baffled.

Who could make another ZD World in such a short period of time?!

Then the marketing for Univ One began to spread nationwide within Country C and other countries within the scope.

The people behind Univ One were quite capable as well. The marketing, and public relations were prepared beforehand to create more hype and pushed more waves.

An article spread to the entire region.

The articles said that Univ One had been under progress even before ZD World was launched publicly. Allegedly, the company was extremely meticulous with the development and construction in order to provide better services to their consumers, so the launch had been delayed. If not, Univ One would have already been launched a year ago, even earlier than ZD World.

This was the implication in the public announcement of the company behind Univ One.

Although this might be just colorful rainbow fart to make Univ One smell good while riding on ZD World's coattails, this statement made the interest-minded businessmen who were having second doubts eye them with green light.

It was an opportunity they could not let pass by!

A few articles followed the first announcement and revealed the past tests and records of Univ One's development, showing their dates. 

The first article was not lying. Univ One was actually in progress at the same time or probably before ZD World!

After these articles, the public opinion began to be guided when several online accounts posted various articles.

They began to make assumptions that ZD World advanced their launch even though it was not yet ready enough to be the pilot leader paving way for the new field in ICT industry. In other words, ZD World purposely robbed the credit of being the godfather of this line in history.

This was followed by different media firms. Their smart-sounding hypotheses made sense in the ears of the public because they posted some 'evidences' like the dates and the detailed progress of Univ One, disregarding the fallacy of such arguments in the first place.

When ZD World was launched, it was so sudden that it rocked the whole world. Unlike Univ One, ZD World did not need to provide the records of their progress in detail to the public. There was no need to.

They focused on advertising their app features and how it would benefit the people and the society.

But it was different for Univ One. They focused on targeting the ZD World's credibility of being the first creation and publicized their progress in public. Whether or not it would be a success, they would be able to ride the coattails of ZD World and make a huge splash by attracting curious consumers for their Univ One.

Thus, the public and the interested companies still trying to woo SC wavered.

Was it really true that Univ One was first created but ZD World was the first to launch?

It was true that when the first pioneer came in, the second and the third would not be given the same extent of attention. But with the hype that Univ One was purposely making while attacking ZD World, the public doubted ZD World.

"Which company is it? Investigate!"

"How is SC responding? Did they release any announcement yet?"

"Contact the company behind Univ One. Make sure to sound them out for a potential cooperation."

It was the same for the corporate world. Since Univ One was launched, the parties who could not strike a deal with SC simultaneously knocked on their doors and fought to join Univ One's boat.

With the public interest in Univ One, the publicity earned of this newly launched project did not fall too far behind from ZD World in the domestic and intra-continental level, which was the current range of Univ One.

With the sudden appearance of Univ One, ZD World's credibility was challenged.